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Zimbabwe undone

Globe and Mail, Canada

STEPHANIE NOLEN

From
Saturday's Globe and Mail

HARARE - The young men sat in the shadow of the
huge stone walls of the Great Zimbabwe Ruins and reminisced about the glory
days: not the 11th century, when the ancient stone city ruled much of
southern Africa, but that period just five or six years ago, when foreign
visitors used to flock here, leaving behind tips in all manner of brightly
printed currencies. At the Great Zimbabwe these days, they are lucky to see
two tourists a month.

The young tour guides said they have not been paid
in months. They sit in the shade, play checkers with bottle caps and try to
make tea on a small wood fire; the gas and electric stoves in the employee
kitchen were cut off a year ago. Albert, though, clings to the belief that
things cannot get worse.

"To be Zimbabwean is to endure," he said,
poking at embers with a stick. "And the only thing greater than the
Zimbabwean ability to tolerate pain is our capacity to believe that somehow
tomorrow will be better."

These are hard days for even the most
determined optimist. Zimbabwe's riches-to-rags story grows only worse, the
once-lustrous economy in free fall, the repressive government of Robert
Mugabe dug in deep.

Everyone has a story, but this may the worst: A young
woman, Doris (not her real name), working for an AIDS organization in
Harare, recounted how she and colleagues had to bury a 21-year-old woman who
couldn't afford ARV treatment, one of 3,000 deaths from AIDS in Zimbabwe
each week.

"While we were there at the morgue to get her body, a family
came in with a body and there were so many flies and such a terrible smell -
it had taken them two weeks to raise the money for a burial," she
said.

It costs at least $20-million in Zimbabwe's collapsing currency, or
$200 (U.S.) at the official exchange rate, to bury the dead in Zimbabwe
these days, money Doris and her colleagues had pooled together to pay for a
funeral for their friend. But for most people, it's a sum that's beyond
reach.

Lowering her voice to a whisper, though no one was around, she
described something else that's happening in Harare now: The government has
posted police to guard the cemeteries at night, she said, because people
were sneaking in to bury their dead relations in unmarked plots under cover
of dark.

"And you know, in our culture that's a terrible thing," she
said. "You must have a funeral. You must have last respects. The family must
come, you must gather. You can't just put someone in the ground - whomp!
-without even a stone to say they are there. Can you imagine, this is how we
must live now?"

Two weeks ago, Zimbabwe's bakers rebelled and defied a
government price cap on bread. Over the course of that week, the price of a
loaf went from $55,000 - that's Zimbabwe dollars, of course - on Monday to
$75,000 by Friday. That assumes a store even has bread; many lack staples
such as soap, toilet paper or cooking oil.

To pay for a basic lunch
of cheese sandwiches and a Coke requires a stack of money thicker than a
hockey puck - and don't get your heart set on that Coke. The bottler has
packed up shop, after running out of foreign currency to buy the precious
secret syrup, and stores that still carry Coke will sell only one to a
customer. Inflation, even by the government's low-ball estimate, was 782 per
cent more than last year, by far the highest rate in the world.

Gas
stations will sell only to people who manage to buy a rare state-issued
coupon in U.S. dollars for fuel, but most stations have empty pumps in any
case. There is fuel to be had on the black market, at $250,000 a litre, if
you have connections and a jerry can to take to a dark alley to make the
transaction.

Over the past few years, one of the sole saving graces
of life in Zimbabwe was sitting down at the end of the day with some friends
and a cold, locally brewed Zambezi beer to complain about how things were
going to hell in a hand basket. Now the breweries can't get the foreign
exchange to buy ingredients, so they've put out warnings about imminent
production stoppages. Could this be the thing that finally drives
Zimbabweans into the streets?

In fact, there is little sign of
rebellion. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change is in total
disarray, split by infighting that supporters blame darkly on infiltration
activities by government agents. It takes most of people's energy just to
negotiate the fuel shortages, the transport crisis, the food scarcities and
the illness (an estimated one in four Zimbabwean adults has HIV-AIDS),
leaving few to contemplate organized rebellion.

"We know things won't
change here until people go into the streets," a group of unemployed and
hungry young men in Harare explained.

"But everyone remembers the
[Rhodesian] war. Our parents tell us so many people died, and even some of
us saw our parents killed. Mugabe knows he will only go with a war, and he
knows that in Zimbabwe, we do not want another war."

Mr. Mugabe has
ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980. Under his tenure, the country
became an economic powerhouse and achieved rates of literacy and health-care
access that were the envy of most of the rest of Africa.

But in the late
1990s, as Mr. Mugabe felt his popularity begin to wane, he dealt the economy
a first harsh blow, making a massive, unbudgeted payment to "war veterans"
of the fight for independence, a move that silenced one sector of fomenting
dissent.

Then he undertook a huge land-reform campaign, expropriating
commercial farms and turning them over to new owners, ostensibly landless
black people.

There is no question that land ownership in Zimbabwe was
terribly skewed: As much as 70 per cent of arable land was then in the hands
of a small, white minority, and a willing buyer/willing seller transfer
envisioned at independence had not occurred. But the white farmers who were
driven off their land, in often violent and brutal evictions, had been
growing the maize that fed the country (and many of Zimbabwe's neighbours)
and the tobacco and other cash crops that formed as much as two-thirds of
import earnings.

Mr. Mugabe's government turned over the farms to
some war veterans, and to many cabinet ministers and members of the ruling
Zanu-PF party. The economy collapsed, contracting by as much as 75 per cent
since 2000, while a huge food shortage emerged, exacerbated by
drought.

ZANU-PF has since blatantly used food aid plus other more
routine tactics of intimidation to manipulate voters in order to take both
parliamentary and presidential elections.

The polls were endorsed by
observers from his African neighbours and condemned by both domestic and
other international monitors as patently unfair. After the last election a
year ago, opposition supporters became the target of a revenge campaign as
vicious as it was gratuitous.

Mr. Mugabe turned 82 in February, and told
supporters at lavish birthday celebrations that he felt instead like a man
of 28. The state-owned Herald newspaper (the government has choked out all
but the last flickers of independent media here) ran a special 16-page
supplement, which described the President as "the greatest hero ever to
grace Zimbabwe and Africa."

He has given no indication he intends to
leave office any time soon, and ZANU-PF is riven by squabbling over a
successor in any case. Just this past week, at a state dinner for a fellow
visiting despot, Equatorial Guineau's President, Teodoro Obiang Mbasogo, Mr.
Mugabe reiterated his theory that meddling Western states, enraged by his
government's independent streak, are to blame for the country's crisis,
imposing sanctions that they disguise in the rhetoric of human
rights.

"Those opposed to our principles have enlisted the services of
like-minded countries and their leaders, and deceitfully and dishonestly
used the media . . . vilifying us as undemocratic because we have dared to
put the interests of the poor and downtrodden first," he said to thunderous
applause. "The born-again democrats in London and Washington would like to
hoodwink the world on the situation in Zimbabwe in the very same manner they
have done on Iraq."

The meddling foreign states were at it again two
weeks ago when U.S. Ambassador Christopher Dell gave an interview to the
local news media in which he said Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis
had "passed the point of no return" for recovery without huge internal
reforms and substantial international help.

"It is our hope that in
the face of the massive crisis that it has brought on itself, the government
here will recognize that it needs to do more than talk about bridge
building," Mr. Dell was quoted as saying.

Yet there is no sign of that
change. In the neighbourhood of Mabvuku, on the edge of the city - known, in
the Zimbabwean euphemism for slum, as a high-density suburb - there is
higher density than ever before, after the government's Operation
Murambatsvina begun nine months ago.

Police with bulldozers levelled tens
of thousands of houses and market stalls across the city in an ostensible
urban-renewal program that was a thinly veiled retaliatory attack on
supporters of the Movement for Democratic Change. People were forcibly
relocated out to empty fields in rural areas, left without food or
possessions. Some 700,000 people lost their homes or jobs or
both.

Many have crept back to the city. Families are crammed together in
tiny houses. But the police still patrol Mabvuku and smash any little stalls
that desperate women set up in their yards to sell soap or
sweets.

One family of 17, who cannot safely be identified by name, is
living in two rooms. Parents and small children sleep in the beds, older
ones sleep below them; possessions that they salvaged from the wreckage of
their homes are piled almost to the ceiling, and thin curtains carve up the
already tiny space in a vain nod to privacy.

One brother worked at
the Coke bottling plant; he's been laid off. Another was a mechanic; the
small shop where he worked was bulldozed. Two of the women used to sell in
the market. Now nobody has any income at all. Two family members have
advanced AIDS, but cannot afford to buy treatment (at $5-million a month) or
even to pay the $150,000 bus fare in to the clinic. It's a struggle to
figure out where to get food each day, although in a bit of grim
practicality, they've taken the two little plots where the other houses used
to stand and turned them into vegetable gardens.

"We want something
better, it's awful how we live now - truly, we are suffering," one of the
women said. "We don't know why they would do this to us. We're just poor
people, and now we're poorer, while we see so many rich people getting
richer."

There are still those who live well in Zimbabwe: At one of the
city's best restaurants, for example, there was not a free table to be had
last week for a prix-fixe four-course dinner at $3-million a head. Lunch
time in a popular café draws an all-white crowd of matrons in designer
sunglasses who sip South African sauvignon blanc and compare notes on what
they can't find any longer at the illegal-import supermarket they
frequent.

In one of the rare pieces of good news, there was plenty of
rain this year, but driving across Zimbabwe, one passes only hectare after
hectare of unplanted land. Many "new farmers" don't have the basic skills to
grow crops, or have not been provided with seeds and fertilizer, which they
now cannot afford to buy.

Yet one farm on the edge of Harare stands
out for its huge fields of crops - it is now owned by Mr. Mugabe's wife,
Grace. She is expecting a bumper harvest.

Not in our name

Dear Family and Friends,One year ago this week, Zanu PF declared themselves
the winners ofZimbabwe's parliamentary elections. They returned to their
governmentoffices, strode back into parliament and continued the party's
quarter ofa century in power under the same leader. At that time, in March
2005,inflation in Zimbabwe was 123% and we thought life was hard. We
didn'trealise that we were about to enter the worst of times when you
onlybought petrol or diesel on the black market, when clean water from the
tapwould become a luxury and when electricity supplies would be
interruptedevery single day. It is hard to believe that just a year since
thoseelections inflation has become unstoppable and is now officially quoted
at782%.

It is still incomprehensible that just a year ago there were
manythousands of ordinary Zimbabweans surviving by making and selling goods
onour road sides, pavements and flea markets. The vast majority of
thosepeople, cleared away in the government's Operation Murambatsvina
lastwinter, have not been seen again in our local neighbourhoods. The
traumaof that cleansing remains with all of us, whether we were victims or
eyewitnesses: the sound of the bulldozers, the smell of dust and smoke
andthe sight of smashed homes and piles of rubble. After a quarter of
acentury in power this is the legacy of our ruling party and now
everysingle Zimbabwean asks just one question : how much longer.

Week
after week I have delayed writing about or commenting on theopposition MDC.
I don't want to have to write about sides and factions;about each insisting
they are the official party, each saying they own thename, the slogan and
the assets. Sadly though, it is still going on - thesquabbles, bickering and
accusations, and while it does, Zimbabweans, justordinary men, women and
children, are simply not coping anymore and arefalling by the
wayside.

This week I met a man I know who begged me to help him with
money so thathe could buy cough mixture for his two month old baby. Day and
night thistiny little baby coughs and coughs. The baby is weak and failing,
theparents are exhausted and desperate but neither government clinic
norhospital can help - they have no cough medicine to dispense. 25 year
oldpromises of free health for all are mirages on a receeding horizon.
Theman dragged a shaking hand over his face to wipe away exhaustion and
tearsas we talked about how to help his baby and the huge cost of a
simplebottle of infant cough syrup.

I do not have a direct line to
Zanu PF or either of the two MDC's but if Idid I would say that what they
are all doing is not in our name. WhileZanu PF leaders warn and threaten and
MDC leaders argue and accuse, peopleare barely alive out here, on the point
of death for a spoon of coughsyrup. Until next week, love cathy. Copyright
cathy buckle 1st April 2006.http://africantears.netfirms.com

Zim asks for oil on 'generous terms'

IOL

Basildon Peta
April 01 2006 at 01:22PM

Harare - Zimbabwe was happy to help
Equatorial Guinea foil a coup planned by South African mercenaries in 2004
but it is now payback time.

President Robert Mugabe's government,
which is running on empty, has confirmed that it has asked visiting
Equatorial Guinea president Teodoro Obiang Nguema for desperately-needed oil
to get the economy turning again.

"They are an oil-producing
country and we are trying to see how we can operationalise some kind of
agreement," Mugabe's spokesperson George Charamba told state
radio.

While Nguema took a short break to tour the Victoria Falls
yesterday, his ministers and their Zimbabwean counterparts were locked in
negotiations on a fuel supply deal. Charamba could not say how Zimbabwe
would pay for the oil since Zimbabwe's government is known to be virtually
bankrupt. All major fuel suppliers have discontinued supplies due to non
payment.

The government cannot therefore suddenly raise foreign
currency to pay for the fuel. It is understood that Zimbabwe is asking
Equatorial Guinea for oil on what one official termed "generous credit
terms" - meaning it would pay much later.

Zimbabwe hopes to
raise foreign currency at tobacco auction floors that are to open next
month. However, it is very unlikely that enough would be raised there after
an admission by the Zimbabwe Tobacco Association that the country will
produce its lowest tobacco crop in many years.

Only 55 million
kilograms of tobacco are due to be delivered to the auction floors this
year, down from a peak of more than 220 million kilograms sold in 1999,
earning the country nearly R6-billion then. That was just before Mugabe
started sponsoring invasions of white farms by his militant supporters in
2000 which sabotaged tobacco production.

Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
governor Gideon Gono is already facing problems in allocating the scarce
foreign currency (forex) that would be raised from tobacco.

Manufacturers have been queuing up for forex allocations which never
materialise. The bank is reportedly in arrears of two years or more with
manufacturers who have applied for foreign currency, resulting in many
factory closures.

The country is also short of basics like
essential drugs. Tuberculosis drugs became the latest to run out on
Thursday.

Mugabe's government played a key role in foiling the
planned coup when it arrested a planeload of mercenaries who had landed at
Harare International Airport in 2004 to pick up arms en route to Equatorial
Guinea to topple Nguema.

The 70 South African mercenaries have
since finished serving jail terms over arms and immigration charges. Their
ringleader Simon Mann remains in jail.

This article was
originally published on page 9 of Cape Argus on April 01, 2006

Once
posing the greatest threat to Mugabe's 26-year rule in the crises-hit
Southern African country, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai's party split
late last year over his decision to boycott Senate elections.

Tsvangirai, who was elected to lead one of the MDC's two splinter factions,
called for "peaceful, democratic resistance" at a party conference last
month.

"The dictator must brace himself for a long, bustling
winter across the country. The bustle should lead us to a bright political
season. A storm is on the horizon," he told thousands of
supporters.

Tsvangirai did not say in what form and when the
protests would take place, but urged Zimbabweans to stock up provisions in
anticipation of the action.

Mugabe said his bodyguard
Winston Changara, who was buried and declared a national hero, was driven by
white Rhodesians to join the country's liberation
movement.

Changara, who headed Zimbabwe's police protection
unit since the early 1980s, died in Harare on Monday. -- Sapa-AFP

Zimbabwe mines law not fixed yet

Reuters

Sat Apr 1, 2006
3:30 PM GMT

HARARE (Reuters) - President Robert Mugabe has dismissed an
uproar over a draft law that could see the state take control of
foreign-owned mines, saying the proposal is still being debated, state media
reported on Saturday.

Last month the Mines Ministry said cabinet
approved amendments to the mining law "to indigenise 51 percent in some
instances of all foreign owned companies", stoking fears Zimbabwe could
become even less attractive to foreign investors.

Zimbabwe is
battling a six-year recession. Mining has emerged as the top foreign
currency earner after the collapse of the agriculture sector, blamed on
Mugabe's seizures of white-owned farms for redistribution among
blacks.

Mugabe, in his first public comments on the issue, told a meeting
of his ruling ZANU-PF party's central committee on Friday that the
government was yet to set a policy as discussions on the mining laws were
still at an early stage.

"There is no policy in place just yet and
the present furore is needless," Mugabe was quoted as saying. "This is (a)
paper that is at a very early stage of discussion in government."

The
Mines Ministry in a statement to the Chamber of Mines said the amended law
would give the government 51 percent in "energy minerals mining companies",
including 25 percent on a "non contributory basis," upon
promulgation.

Industry officials say a non-contributory basis means
the government would acquire shares without paying for them.

The
proposals have rattled an industry hit hard by erratic electricity cuts and
mine closures in the last five years as operating costs spiralled.

Last
month a senior official from the world's second largest platinum producer
Implats met Mugabe over the proposals. Zimbabwe, with the second largest
platinum deposits after South Africa, is the main area for Implats future
growth.

Mugabe said the country's resources belonged to locals who had
the sole right to determine the level of foreign investment.

"There
must be recognition that our minerals are a depleting and non-renewable
resource, which we have allowed in the past to be wholly owned and exploited
by foreign-owned companies for well over a century. This will not be allowed
in future," Mugabe said.

NCA against tokenist reform of the
constitution

zimbabwejournalists.com

By a Correspondent

THE National
Constitutional Assembly (NCA) says it is outraged by the government's
efforts to establish a human rights commission when the country's human
rights record is itself in tatters due to government-sponsored violence and
related issues.

NCA spokesperson, Jessie Majome says the creation
of the commission is "yet another instance of the government's piecemeal,
tokenist and undemocratic approach to Zimbabwe's urgent and dire need for
comprehensive and people driven constitutional reform". She says the people
of Zimbabwe should say No to such acts by the government.

"Although a human rights commission is urgently required in Zimbabwe, to
introduce it in the form of an 18th patch to Zimbabwe's tattered torn, and
shabby constitution, is in itself a mockery of the noble concept of human
rights protection," she said. "A human rights commission established on the
dilapidated and emaciated declaration of rights framework of the current
constitution is an exercise in futility."

She asks what use the
commission will be when the declaration of rights in the same constitution
is so narrow and shallow as to literally give rights with the left hand and
claw them back with the right, "hence the flourishing of fascist laws such
as the notorious Public Order and Security P.O.S.A. Act, and the Access to
Information and Protection Act AIPPA".

Many civic groups in the
country, including the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), have been
asking how effective the human rights commission can be when the provisions
of the same constitution which subordinate human rights to executive powers
remain intact, how relevant will the work of the proposed human rights
commission will be to the life of the ordinary suffering woman or man when
the same constitution does not recognize economic and social rights such as
the rights to food, health and education?

"The last thing
Zimbabweans need is to have paternalistic drops of constitutional reform
doled out to them at the whim of the government. Zimbabweans have a right to
craft their own new and democratic constitution," says Majome. She
adds the NCA rejects a partisan rights commission designed merely to serve
as an additional bureaucratic ruling to prevent and delay Zimbabweans from
mounting human rights complaints in the international arena which offers
their only hope. The NCA fears that such an amendment will also serve
as a vehicle for more sinister amendments designed to keep the government's
grip on power.

There seems, however, to be differences within the
civic groups as to how to respond to the announcement by the government for
the creation of the human rights commission. Individuals within the
institutions are said to be advocating for engagement with the government
over this issue, especially since the United Nation's country team will be
assist in its formation. The rejected draft constitution had a clause on the
human rights commission while the NCA one and the one offered to Zanu PF by
the opposition MDC recently, also has in it the need to have a human rights
commission. The UN Paris principles call on all countries to establish
human rights commissions but the opposition and civic groups in Zimbabwe
fear the government wants to stop people from taking complaints outside the
country.

Zimbabwe London Forum Monday 3rd April

Zimbabwe London Forum Monday 3rd April - speaker Peter Tatchell

How to do
Effective Campaigning - Ways to put Zimbabwe on the UK National
Agenda

As this is what we all want to achieve, we at the London
Forum, hope that you will come and listen and lend your voice to the lively
discussion that will follow. We will undoubtedly learn some tips for
livening up our activist campaign skills and developing future
plans.Anna MerytSam Takaravashafor the Forum TeamTime: 7:30 -
9.30pmVenue: Upstairs function room, Theodore Bullfrog,28 John Adam
Street, London WC2N 6HLUnderground: Charing Cross (1 minute), Embankment (3
minutes)

For
more info contact: london_mdc_forum@yahoo.co.ukViews
Expressed at Forums are not necessarily the views of the MDC, nor
necessarily endorsed by the MDC. A Platform is given to concerned
individuals and groups about the Zimbabwe situation.

ZCTF Report

1st April 2006

ZIMBABWE CONSERVATION
TASK FORCE

Following our recent report
regarding the delivery to Hwange of the consignment of landrover spares donated
by the Hwange Conservation Society (UK), we would like to express our sincere
gratitude to Nicholas Duncan and the Save Foundation of Australia for coming
forward with the money to pay the customs duty on the spare parts.

We are now able to replace the
ZCTF funds we had set aside to pay the duty. This has helped us enormously because we are currently collecting a truck
load of donated tyres for Hwange from South Africa and we will now be in a
position to pay the duty on those when they come across the border.

Zimbabwe tests world's first HIV/AIDS
toolkit

People's Daily

Zimbabwe is testing the world's first ever HIV/AIDS
toolkit whose results are expected to form the basis for a massive worldwide
antiretroviral therapy rollout plan.

The International
Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies produced the toolkit in
partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Southern Africa
HIV/AIDS Information Dissemination Service.

"The rationale behind
the development of this toolkit is related to global efforts to help access
antiretroviral drugs. It's one of public strategies aimed at making the
drugs available," Getachew Gizaw, the federation's senior health officer for
the Global Program on HIV/AIDS Health and Care Department said on
Friday.

The testing process involves examination by local
communities to check how usable the toolkit is before it can be implemented
worldwide.

Professionals from the University of Zimbabwe, the Blair
Research Station and from Kenya are facilitating the testing
process.

"Zimbabwe was chosen to test it because of its excellence
in initiating different strategies on home based care," said
Gizaw.

The testing exercise is expected to end on April 15
culminating in the publication of the first English version by end of
June.

"We hope to publish others in French and Spanish before the
end of the year because demand is quite high," he said.

Many
governments, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, are facing difficulties in
implementing policies aimed at mitigating the effects of the deadly pandemic
due to lack of technical support.

Zimbabwe has managed to reduce
its HIV/AIDS prevalence rate from 24.6 percent to 20.1 percent in recent
years.

British tourists fuel Africa's cruel trade in 'canned
hunting'

The Independent, UK

By Jonathan Brown and Rob SharpPublished: 01 April
2006British tourists are fuelling a booming industry reliant on the
slaughter of thousands of lions and other exotic animals by travelling to
Africa to hunt semi-tame big game.

Rich huntsmen are willing to pay
up to £625,000 a time to shoot and stuff animals bred commercially for their
sport as part of the so-called "canned hunting" trade.

British and
other European governments are coming under mounting pressure from
international animal welfare groups to ban imports of hunting trophies in an
attempt to cut off the demand for the trade.

Figures reveal that 164
trophy licences have been granted to British hunters since 1999 allowing
them to bring big game mementoes home. However, it is estimated that as many
as a thousand UK citizens a year travel abroad in search of quarry after
having booked a canned hunting safari over the internet.

The
Independent was offered the opportunity to shoot and kill all of the big
five game animals - elephants, rhino, buffalo, leopard and lion - within
minutes of contacting ranch owners. One even indicated he could arrange a
hunt using fox hounds to chase down lynx.

Campaigners say the most
sought-after trophies are the heads and feet cut from dead lions, leopards,
wild dogs and elephants. But as competition grows, commercial hunts are
offering increasingly exotic prey, introducing tiger, jaguar, puma and grey
wolves, according to new evidence from the International Fund for Animal
Welfare (IFAW).

Animals with a recessive gene, such as white lions, black
leopards and king cheetahs, are particularly sought after, while breeders
can also charge a premium by crossing sub-species of leopard and tiger, IFAW
says.

The demand is so great that animals are being hand-reared from
birth in cages and sold on to stock the growing number of game ranches where
they end their lives in fenced-off killing enclosures. They may be drugged
into docility and habituated to human contact, it is claimed.

Welfare
groups say such breeding practices render the animals sitting targets to the
hunters who dispatch them with a choice of weapons, ranging from
high-powered rifles to bows and arrows.

Video footage obtained by
anti-canned hunting campaigners has revealed wounded animals writhing in
agony as they die after being shot, often against fences.

Such is the
scale of the trade that IFAW claims it is critically undermining big cat
populations and threatening their long-term survival. Christina Pretorius, a
spokesperson for IFAW, says there are up to 3,000 lions in captivity in
South Africa waiting to be shot by overseas hunters who come mainly from the
United States, France, Germany, Spain and Britain. "There is absolutely no
sport in this. They are being bred to be shot in enclosed areas where they
have no chance of escape or a fair chance. They are already accustomed to
humans and associate them with food.

"They are drugged to keep them even
more docile so they put up even less of a fight."

She said the
industry was growing "out of control" and measures were desperately needed
to stop the expansion that was undermining South Africa's international
reputation for wildlife management.

Six years ago trophy hunting in South
Africa was worth about £14m a year. By last year that figure reached nearly
£80m. Zimbabwe is also vigorously promoting itself as a canned hunting
destination and other African nations are also developing it.

Liberal
Democrat MP Mike Hancock has been campaigning for Britain to impose a total
ban on the import of trophies and the promotion of the practice. "It is just
about as low as it gets to kill animals in this way and it is beyond belief
that people can be allowed to make money out of it. We are actively
encouraging people to sell these so-called holidays and why anyone would
want to bring back an elephant's foot as a trophy is beyond belief," he
said.

Mr Hancock is holding out little hope that the Government could
implement a ban despite a recently concluded consultation exercise on the
trade in exotic pets and animal parts.

Jim Knight, the Bio-diversity
minister, told the House of Commons that he did not consider new legislation
as enforceable. But he said existing powers could be used to outlaw the
possession of tiger, bear and other protected species' parts.

"We are
currently considering responses to a public consultation on the subject and
I will announce our conclusions in the summer," Mr Knight said.

At
present many species hunted for trophies are covered by the EU laws
implementing the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species
(Cites), which allows for imports to be refused where the trade is
considered detrimental to the conservation of individual species.

The
South African government is also expected to announce soon the findings of a
panel of hunting experts on the future of wildlife resources. But some
campaigners believe it is a cynical exercise. Chris Mercer, a South African
conservationist who is in the middle of a British speaking tour to convince
people against going on canned hunts, said: "The hunting industry now owns
conservation in South Africa and what you will get is a splendid exercise in
public relations. Even if the law is changed there will be no one to enforce
it and the policy will not be worth the paper it is written on."

The
Independent was offered a two-week hunting trip costing £5,000 a person with
impala, warthog, kudu and zebra. Another operator quoted the cost of killing
and skinning an elephant at £10,000 with taxidermy charged extra. The most
sought-after trophy of all is that of a black-maned lion, which will cost up
to £625,000.

British tourists are fuelling a booming industry reliant on
the slaughter of thousands of lions and other exotic animals by travelling
to Africa to hunt semi-tame big game.

Rich huntsmen are willing to
pay up to £625,000 a time to shoot and stuff animals bred commercially for
their sport as part of the so-called "canned hunting" trade.

British
and other European governments are coming under mounting pressure from
international animal welfare groups to ban imports of hunting trophies in an
attempt to cut off the demand for the trade.

Figures reveal that 164
trophy licences have been granted to British hunters since 1999 allowing
them to bring big game mementoes home. However, it is estimated that as many
as a thousand UK citizens a year travel abroad in search of quarry after
having booked a canned hunting safari over the internet.

The
Independent was offered the opportunity to shoot and kill all of the big
five game animals - elephants, rhino, buffalo, leopard and lion - within
minutes of contacting ranch owners. One even indicated he could arrange a
hunt using fox hounds to chase down lynx.

Campaigners say the most
sought-after trophies are the heads and feet cut from dead lions, leopards,
wild dogs and elephants. But as competition grows, commercial hunts are
offering increasingly exotic prey, introducing tiger, jaguar, puma and grey
wolves, according to new evidence from the International Fund for Animal
Welfare (IFAW).

Animals with a recessive gene, such as white lions, black
leopards and king cheetahs, are particularly sought after, while breeders
can also charge a premium by crossing sub-species of leopard and tiger, IFAW
says.

The demand is so great that animals are being hand-reared from
birth in cages and sold on to stock the growing number of game ranches where
they end their lives in fenced-off killing enclosures. They may be drugged
into docility and habituated to human contact, it is claimed.

Welfare
groups say such breeding practices render the animals sitting targets to the
hunters who dispatch them with a choice of weapons, ranging from
high-powered rifles to bows and arrows.

Video footage obtained by
anti-canned hunting campaigners has revealed wounded animals writhing in
agony as they die after being shot, often against fences.

Such is the
scale of the trade that IFAW claims it is critically undermining big cat
populations and threatening their long-term survival. Christina Pretorius, a
spokesperson for IFAW, says there are up to 3,000 lions in captivity in
South Africa waiting to be shot by overseas hunters who come mainly from the
United States, France, Germany, Spain and Britain. "There is absolutely no
sport in this. They are being bred to be shot in enclosed areas where they
have no chance of escape or a fair chance. They are already accustomed to
humans and associate them with food.

"They are drugged to keep them even
more docile so they put up even less of a fight."

She said the
industry was growing "out of control" and measures were desperately needed
to stop the expansion that was undermining South Africa's international
reputation for wildlife management.

Six years ago trophy hunting in South
Africa was worth about £14m a year. By last year that figure reached nearly
£80m. Zimbabwe is also vigorously promoting itself as a canned hunting
destination and other African nations are also developing it.

Liberal
Democrat MP Mike Hancock has been campaigning for Britain to impose a total
ban on the import of trophies and the promotion of the practice. "It is just
about as low as it gets to kill animals in this way and it is beyond belief
that people can be allowed to make money out of it. We are actively
encouraging people to sell these so-called holidays and why anyone would
want to bring back an elephant's foot as a trophy is beyond belief," he
said.

Mr Hancock is holding out little hope that the Government could
implement a ban despite a recently concluded consultation exercise on the
trade in exotic pets and animal parts.

Jim Knight, the Bio-diversity
minister, told the House of Commons that he did not consider new legislation
as enforceable. But he said existing powers could be used to outlaw the
possession of tiger, bear and other protected species' parts.

"We are
currently considering responses to a public consultation on the subject and
I will announce our conclusions in the summer," Mr Knight said.

At
present many species hunted for trophies are covered by the EU laws
implementing the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species
(Cites), which allows for imports to be refused where the trade is
considered detrimental to the conservation of individual species.

The
South African government is also expected to announce soon the findings of a
panel of hunting experts on the future of wildlife resources. But some
campaigners believe it is a cynical exercise. Chris Mercer, a South African
conservationist who is in the middle of a British speaking tour to convince
people against going on canned hunts, said: "The hunting industry now owns
conservation in South Africa and what you will get is a splendid exercise in
public relations. Even if the law is changed there will be no one to enforce
it and the policy will not be worth the paper it is written on."

The
Independent was offered a two-week hunting trip costing £5,000 a person with
impala, warthog, kudu and zebra. Another operator quoted the cost of killing
and skinning an elephant at £10,000 with taxidermy charged extra. The most
sought-after trophy of all is that of a black-maned lion, which will cost up
to £625,000.

Mugabe says Tsvangirai 'dicing with death'

New Zimbabwe

By Cris
ChinakaLast updated: 04/01/2006 06:18:55ZIMBABWE'S President Robert
Mugabe on Friday warned opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai not to organise
street protests to overthrow him, saying such a campaign would be dicing
with death.

Tsvangirai, leader of the main faction of the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said earlier this month he would soon
lead a wave of "mass action" demonstrations against Mugabe, Zimbabwe's ruler
since 1980.

Tsvangirai charges that Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party have
rigged three main elections since 2000 to remain in power.

In that
time Zimbabwe has descended into economic crisis, and critics blame Mugabe's
policies for food, fuel and foreign currency shortages, huge inflation and
unemployment. Mugabe says his opponents have sabotaged the economy to
undermine him.

Addressing thousands of his supporters in Harare at the
burial of a senior security aide, Mugabe said he would crush any attempts by
the MDC to force him out of office.

Speaking in Zimbabwe's main
vernacular Shona language, Mugabe mocked Tsvangirai as a coward who deserted
the country's independence war in the 1970s, but was now posing as a patriot
in a country struggling with a severe economic crisis.

"Who do you
think you are threatening? Who do you think will be moved by your threats?"
Mugabe said, adding that ZANU-PF was a battled hardened liberation
party.

"These threats, that if we won't leave office you are going to
remove us through violence -- Aaah, this man! Does he know our history, does
he know our record?"

Tsvangirai said on March 18 sustained protests
were the only way to overcome government brutality, and that he was ready to
lead peaceful demonstrations.

"Don't dice with death in that manner,"
Mugabe warned. "It will never happen. We won't allow it," he added, saying
Tsvangirai should concentrate on the ballot box.

The MDC was formed
in 1999 and has for years been seen as the greatest threat to Mugabe's hold
on power. But analysts say a recent split in its ranks over how to tackle
Mugabe has weakened its potency.

At a recent congress of his main MDC
faction, Tsvangirai said his group was still a resilient force capable of
launching a strong political campaign.

Mugabe, Zimbabwe's ruler since
independence from Britain in 1980, has kept the opposition in check mainly
through tough policing, including routine deployment of security forces to
crush all street protests -- Reuters